Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (78 page)

* "Comic books," Dr. Wertham wrote in i954, "create sex fears of all kinds.

. . . A Western with a picture of Tom Mix on the cover has in one story no less than sixteen consecutive pictures of a girl tied up with ropes, her hands of course tied behind her back! She is shown in all kinds of poses, each more sexually suggestive than the other, and her facial expression shows that she seems to enjoy this treatment. Psychiatrically speaking, this is nothing but the masturbation fantasy of a sadist and it has a corresponding effect on
boys.
For girls, and those boys who identify themselves with the girl, it may become the starting-point for masochistic fantasies."

the faithful market for the confessions but occasional readership may be twice that number. According to one sales survey, maga zines with cover lines pertaining to brute force
( "HE MADE ME
no
IT!")
sell best.* --

The confession magazines I purchased during one expedition to my corner store were dated February or March, i972. Each featured a tale of rape, a near-rape or a rape fantasy. Taken
in toto
they promulgated a philosophy of submission in which the female victim was of ten to blame, whereas the men in her life-husband, boyfriend or rapist-emerged as persons of complex emotion de serving of sympathy.
In
strict adherence to the confession formula, the rape functioned as a positive catalyst for the heroine in her never-ending quest for a new boyfriend or an improved relationship with a husband. Here are brief synopses.

"1 WAS THE VICTIM OF
A
SEX GANG"
( True Lite Confessions, March ) . The blurb reads,
"I
was out for
kicks
and nobody was going
to
stop
me!
That's how I got caught by the toughest gang of guys around." Conceited Dory is bored by steady Perry, who tells her, "You talk too much. Guys don't like girls who are too quick with the wisecracks." On a dare Dory walks into the clubhouse of a gang of toughs and is nearly gang-raped. When she comes to af ter "blacking out," a stern policeman is bending over her. The gang is packed off to a reform school, but Dory confesses, "Actually I felt a little guilty." In the last paragraph Dory tells us, "I learned a lesson that I hope other girls will remember. When you ask for trouble as I did-you can be sure you'll get it. And I'm grateful that I got out of it without being assaulted, that my sharp tongue and know-

*
I speak from firsthand knowledge of the field, once having worked as an assistant editor for a group of confessions. The house I worked for also pub lished a group of men's magazines, and we divided our editorial time accord ingly. In contrast to the confessions-woeful tales of girls gone wrong-the men's magazines marketed a formula of blood and guts-superman triumphs over dangerous animals and luscious women. The cover art for both sets of magazines was revealing. The female confessions invariably pictured a young woman peeking out from a thicket of one-line blurbs implying guilt and/ or distress. Covers for the men's magazines alternately depicted (a ) an evil doc tor, of ten in Nazi uniform, about to jab a hypodermic needle into a girl who was bound and gagged while a hero figure manfully strode to the rescue, or

(b) a jungle animal, of ten a black panther, clawing at a prostrate, hysterical blonde while a white hunter in khakis rushed to the rescue. This cover, my boss informed me,
was
meant to symbolize interracial rape.

it-all attitude didn't wreck my life as it could so easily have done." Her virginity saved, she goes back to faithful Perry and "grows up."

"SEX CREEPS ALWAYS PICK ON GIRLS LIKE ME"
( M odern Love,

March ) . The blurb reads, "It happens
too often to be just
acci
dental."
Susan is disturbed by exhibitionists who expose them selves. She joins an encounter group and reveals her problem. The leader, a psychologist, suggests that Susan sends out signals to the men because deep down she is afraid of sex. Susan suddenly under stands that unconsciously she had been staring at the men. She starts a new relationship with Chuck, one of the young men in her group.

"1 THOUGHT NOBODY HAD RAPE DREAMS LIKE MINE"
(Real

Confessions,
February ). Betty Jo has daydreams of rape and coinci dentally doesn't want to get pregnant. Husband Jack, a big guy, is a gentle lover. "I was disappointed by his tenderness," Betty Jo says. "I wanted to be overwhelmed by brute force." They consult a minister who tells them that Betty Jo's fantasies are normal. He recommends that they consult a doctor, who assures them, "Rape is a very common fantasy that women have, and that's why it turns up so of ten in movies and books. Most women who have. these fantasies don't really want to be raped, not in the sense of being mistreated or hurt. They like being dominated and overwhelmed by a man." Thus reassured, Jack 'fesses up: "I have a few
sex
dreams of my own. Like-what it's like to make love to a woman whose [sic] fighting you every inch of the way. . . . The idea of forcing a woman turns me on. I don't mean beating her up, just showing her it's all gotta be my way, no matter what she wants." Betty Jo and Jack decide to practice "rape games" at home. The first time Jack tries, Betty Jo protests that she isn't wearing her diaphragm-she could get pregnant! Jack persists with "brute force." Betty Jo tells us, "I didn't have any choice. I had to submit and be overwhelmed by his absolute strength and masculinity.
It
lef t me free, somehow, in a way I never felt before, to experience all the thrills I could only dream about till then." In the last paragraph she reports they now have two kids.

"1
MADE HIM oo
IT . . .
To ME!"
( True Confessions,
Febru

ary) . The blurb reads, "What kind of girl gets raped? What kind of man
is
a rapist? Right away you
think
you
know the
answers. But af ter you read
this
story, you may find you're wrong." Helen, a

shy girl from Indiana, goes to a singles bar in New York where she meets Danny, an ex-marine "with a nice-looking face and large brown eyes." She is too prim and proper for Danny's tastes, and he ignores her. Crushed, she leaves the bar, "knowing that I should really take a taxi since no New York street is safe for a girl alone af ter dark."
A
few evenings later she returns to the bar, determined not to let Danny get away. She is very flirtatious and Danny accompanies her to her studio apartment for a· cup of coffee. They kiss-but suddenly it gets more serious: "Danny, I-" "Shut up." Then,
"A
strangled sound broke from my throat as he forced himself upon me." Danny rapes her and leaves. Bleeding and in pain, Helen staggers to her feet and calls a girlfriend. The girlf riend wants to call the police, but Helen refuses. She will not go to a hospital, either.
A
young intern who lives in the friend's building is called in. He tells Helen she'll be "okay" af ter a few days of bed rest. Helen's friend still wants to call the police, but Helen is adamant. It is her fault! "What other girl would be such a fool? What other girl would invite a total stranger into her apartment in the middle of the night, let him start to make love to her and expect him to stop?"
A
few days later a remorseful Danny sends Helen
$so
"for the doctor's bill." Next he calls her on the tele phone, apologizes and says he has sworn off alcohol for good. Helen and Danny are dating now: "We seem to be helping each other through a bad time-a bad time that is slowly getting better.''

"1
GAVE UP THE
MAN
I LOVED TO KEEP A RAPIST'S CHILD" ( True

Romance, February ) . Karen is raped by an escapee from the state mental hospital. Her family is afraid the town "will jeer," so Karen's mother tells the newspapers that
she
was the victim. But Karen discovers she is pregnant. Despite a law that allows abortion, Karen decides to bear and keep the rapist's child, who is born retarded. Boyfriend Neal rejects her, but new boyfriend Mark steps into the breach. The blurb: "Does a woman ever forget her help less
little
first-born?"

"RAPED WHILE PREGNANT!- AND I CAN'T TELL
MY
HUSBAND!"

(Personal Romances, March ) . The blurb reads,
"It
can
only end in
more terrible
violence
if
I identif y
my attacker." Cathy, a pregnant teacher's aide, is raped in her classroom. She miscarries that eve ning. Cathy decides not to tell the sheriff or husband Burt about the rape because the town will jeer and because Burt has always said he'd kill any man who attacked her. By coincidence, Cathy's

friend Janice is also raped-and murdered-that same night in a neighboring county. The sheriff picks up a suspect for Janice's murder, but the suspect offers an unusual alibi. It was not Janice whom he raped, but Cathy. In this curious story, Cathy is finally convinced to admit her rape and identify her attacker in order
to
save him
from the false and more serious charge of murdering Janice. There is much talk in this story about how "unmanned" Burt feels by Cathy's rape. Burt gets in a good sock at Cathy's rapist in the county jail, and the sheriff's wife says approvingly, "I'm glad he got to him, Cathy. It's the only way he could get some of that poison out and feel like a man again."

"DADDY, WHY DOES MOMMY CALL YOU A RAPIST?"
( True

Love, February ) . A child-rapist is at large and Midge's mother begins to suspect Midge's father because she has not slept with him for years and "it ain't natural for a man to go without . . ." Midge's mother is wrong about her husband, of course, and in the last paragraph it looks like the family sex life is beginning to improve.

I intended to limit my random sampling to one sweep of the magazine rack, but a few weeks later while I was buying my news paper at the corner store I noticed that the March
Real
Confes
sions
had just come in. I already had February in my possession, but a particularly provocative title caught my eye. The plot was the same story of an uppity girl getting her comeuppance from a gang of_boys that I had read in the March True Life
Confessions,
"I WAS THE VICTIM OF A SEX GANG."
The blurb on this new one, though, was a trifle more explicit:
"I
knew I
was partly
to
blame, too-be cause
I
tried too hard
to
change everybody's
life."
But the title

spoke volumes! It read:
"GANG-RAPED BY
7
BOYS-BECAUSE I LED THEIR GIRLS INTO A WOMEN'S LIB CLUB."